Quotes About The Velvet Underground

#1. When I was very little, I was into Michael Jackson. At six or seven, it was Madonna, but she's not what she used to be. I've been into everything from Edith Piaf to Joe Strummer to the Velvet Underground to Suicide to A Tribe Called Quest to African music.

Lykke Li

#2. It's hard to imagine the whole punk movement without The Velvet Underground. I toured with them when they did their reunion tour, and no one sounds like that; they are a very unique-sounding band.

Dean Wareham

#3. Parallels between classical and pop are not new. The whole San Francisco movement of John Cage and Terry Riley went hand in glove with what the Velvet Underground were doing.

Charles Hazlewood

#4. I knew about things like Iggy Pop and The Velvet Underground, weirdly, before I knew about David Bowie. I didn't know what David Bowie was, when I was a kid. I thought he was like Visage.

Stewart Lee

#5. I like their darkness but I also like the pop-side of the Velvet Underground.

Martin Gore

#6. As a songwriter, oddly enough, my influences were people like Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Buddy Holly. Some psychedelic stuff, too.

Ric Ocasek

#7. When a band becomes as truly iconic as the Velvet Underground, there will often be a box set released, overburdened with mediocre material that dilutes what was fine left on its own.

Henry Rollins

#8. When I was growing up, I fetishised New York City. It was the land of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, it was where Leonard Cohen wrote 'Chelsea Hotel', it was CBGBs and all the punk rock clubs. Artists and musicians lived there, and it was cheap and dangerous.

Moby

#9. I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk.

Dean Wareham

#10. I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music - it's like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band.

Courtney Love

#11. As a New Yorker you can't help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted 'Rhapsody in Blue' here; the Velvet Underground are from New York.

Moby

#12. Though gay lifestyles have certainly moved into the open, there's little evidence that society has become more open in its basic attitudes or that entertainers should feel cozy in emerging from the velvet underground.

Peter Bart

#13. The English language is full of words that are just waiting to be misspelled, and the world is full of sticklers, ready to pounce.

Mary Norris

#14. You could not buy a house in those days without just assuming that the house was not only a place to live, but it was a good investment, because it was going to keep up with inflation or get ahead of inflation, and it was just - that was America.

Paul A. Volcker

#15. The Plastic People of the Universe played 'Venus in Furs' from Velvet Underground, and I knew everything was basically okay.

Tom Stoppard

#16. If you would keep your soul
From spotted sight or sound,
Live like the velvet mole;
Go burrow underground.

Elinor Wylie

#17. I like Velvet Underground, but I was never really hardcore into them. I like them, and I like Nico, but I won't front like I'm super knowledgeable. I just never got around to it.

Eric Andre

#18. Why do so many black and Hispanic people vote for liberals who so energetically support the murder of black and Hispanic babies?

Bristol Palin

#19. This book is on us, by us but not biased....

Srishti Khanna

#20. I had to settle for two of the most inadequate words in the English language, words to pale to express what I needed to say. Thank you.

Lilith Saintcrow

#21. It is imperative that a woman keep her sense of humor intact and at the ready. She must see, even if only in secret, that she is the funniest, looniest woman in her world, which she should also see as being the most absurd world of all times.

Maya Angelou

#22. I love the company of people. I always have and always will, it comes with my family. But earlier in life I might have got a little nervous if I was alone for a day or two in a row. I might think, "Where are they?" Now, I just go on doing naturally what I do.

Jack Nicholson

#23. As a teen, I heard the second Velvet Underground album, 'White Light/White Heat,' and it was too much for my limited scope of appreciation. It was intense, but I didn't get it.

Henry Rollins

#24. At fifty-one, why would she choose to dispose of her house, uproot herself, and come here to be a part of your work if she didn't feel that, for the first time in her life, she was profoundly known for who she is, that she was at last cherished for who she truly is?

Dean Koontz

#25. I do a cover of a Velvet Underground song, and they were one of the most important bands, for me.

Martin Gore

#26. A lot of children can go back and look at their childhood and find reasons why it wasn't perfect. But why whine about something no one can fix? You deal with it.

Junior Seau

#27. I grew up in the '90s. I listened to a lot of The Clash, Velvet Underground and Roxy Music. I wasn't into Boyzone, or anything.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

#28. What is important is that we stop and realize, 'Okay. This is fine. I can enjoy that.' But what is really important, what I'm really going to take away with me from this life, is my connection with other people.

Tom Ford

#29. No part of Manhattan these days really has the same vibe I get from a Ramones song or a Velvet Underground song.

Ezra Koenig

#30. Strategy is buying a bottle of fine wine when you take a lady out for dinner. Tactics is getting her to drink it.

Frank Muir

#31. Only in a state of disconnection do we suffer and struggle. The divine intention is for every human being to enjoy unlimited success.

Deepak Chopra

#32. Oxford is wonderful. I'm having a great time. We do go out, but I still try to spend most of my time studying in the library.

Chelsea Clinton

#33. The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

Brian Eno

#34. Not many people bought Velvet Underground LPs, but those who did, started a band.

Brian Eno

#35. I was in the ensemble and also covered the parts of Dee Dee and Mary!! I had a fantastic time doing this show especially when we performed in places like Cardiff and Glasgow where the audiences were just so enthusiastic, joining in with all the songs and up on their feet dancing at the end!!

Francesca Jackson